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Capsules

CAPSULE: JACKER 2: DESCENT TO HELL (1996)

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DIRECTED BY: Barry Gaines

FEATURING: Phil Herman, Barry Gaines, Ben Stanski

PLOT: After being thrown off a cliff Mike, the carjacker-cum-serial killer from Jacker, becomes an invulnerable supernatural entity.

Still from Jacker 2: Descent Into Hell

COMMENTS: Where to start with Jacker 2? Well, maybe start with Jacker, the senseless story of a serial-killing carjacker who likes to put blood in his Wheaties and who easily outwits some of the stupidest cops in the world, who can’t figure out he killed his girlfriend because they never think to check the handwriting on her suicide note and can’t figure out he killed the investigating detective’s sister despite his basically threatening to do so in front of a group of police witnesses. It features dingy VHS camcorder videography often lit by streetlights, some less-than-thrilling taking-an-elevator-to-your-apartment scenes, lobotomized acting, sound that ranges from inconsistent to inaudible, and a reasonable amount of violence, but almost no gore or special effects. (To be fair, the script for Jacker was written in a reported four days.)

Jacker 2 picks up exactly where Jacker left off, and most of Jacker‘s characters—including the dead ones—show up again. This fact might give you some reason to watch Jacker, but the main reason to watch Jacker is because it makes Jacker 2 look so much better by comparison. Although the sequel’s story is even more nonsensical—a positive, since the whackadoodle plot is the only real reason to watch this—everything else is much improved. There are a greater variety of creative camera shots, more effective attempts at deliberate comedy, sleazier sex scenes, goofier supporting characters, better (though still not good) sound, occasional lighting for scenes, more non-sequiturs, a bigger ketchup budget, and a trip to Hell (which, as you might have suspected, is actually a basement in New Jersey)—complete with demonic costumes that might have looked silly except for the fact that you can barely make them out through the heavy yellow filter and solarization haze. The editing is actually impressive, given the low quality of the raw footage they had to work with. While Jacker 2 likely would have earned a “Beware” rating if I had seen it first, in contrast to Jacker, it’s a near masterpiece—the Citizen Kane of New Jersey-shot microbudget invulnerable supernatural carjacker flicks.

Of course, it’s a rough ride for the average viewer accustomed to movies with more polish, but Jacker 2 is—if not actually good—at least memorable. The 90s no-budget shot-on-video aesthetic is a real one (heck, Harmony Korine even deliberately aped it). In fact, with all of its technical deficiencies, the biggest complaint against the film is that, at 105 minutes, it’s way too long. Trim out a few of the carjackings that went nowhere, and it would almost be a strong little indie.

Falcon Video was (is?) a New Jersey-based team of zero-budget horror film makers who originally sold most of their movies through mail order. They take turns directing, writing and producing films, but Phil Herman (who stars as Mike the Jacker, wrote both films, and directed the first one) is the central figure. They’re a fascinating collective: a group of friends who break out the camcorder and make feature films in their spare time while holding down day jobs. We should all be so lucky. There are lots of references to Falcon Video and other FV films spread throughout Jacker and Jacker 2, including a running joke that whenever someone’s TV is on, there’s an FV production onscreen.

Semi-star alert: Marilyn Ghigliotti had a major role a few years earlier in cult classic Clerks (she played Dante’s girlfriend, Veronica), but accepts a much smaller role here; talk about climbing down the ladder! (Don’t worry, Marilyn rebounded and is doing just fine today, having accumulated 42 IMDb credits and counting.)

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…it doesn’t just repeat the earlier movie’s formula but adds horror and the supernatural to the mix in a way that comes across as properly creepy, and it’s clear to see the filmmakers made the most out of what little they had. And the result … may not be a masterpiece, objectively speaking, but if you’re into shot-on-video movies from the era, there’s a good chance you might like this one.”–Michael Haberfelner, (Re)search My Trash

Jacker / Jacker 2: Descent to Hell [Blu-ray]

Jacker / Jacker 2: Descent to Hell [Blu-ray]
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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: KUNG FU CONTRA AS BONECAS [KUNG FU AGAINST THE DOLLS] (1975)

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AKA Bruce Lee versus Gay Power

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DIRECTED BY: Adriano Stuart

FEATURING: Adriano Stuart, Maurício do Valle, Helena Ramos, Edgard Franco, Nadir Fernandes

PLOT: When Chang, a wandering warrior of mixed origin who is well-versed in the skills and philosophies of kung fu, returns home to find that his family has been murdered by a gang of outrageous bandits, he vows to seek vengeance.

Kung Fu Contra As Bonecas [AKA Bruce Lee vs. Gay Power] ()

COMMENTS: No one associated with the making of this film ever called it Bruce Lee vs. Gay Power. This is important, because that extraordinary title seems to be at the heart of its lingering reputation. If some enterprising videocassette huckster hadn’t decided to employ some savvy attention-getting branding, combining an extreme example of Bruceploitation with a thematically unexpected opponent, then Kung Fu contra As Bonecas might never have made it out of Brazil. As it is, I’ve had to take a crash course in Brazilian history and film trends just to wrap my head around exactly what’s going on here, to say nothing of stoking a passing familiarity with poorly aged 1970s American television. Even with that, I have my doubts as to whether I’ve gotten it all. It is often said of art that if you have to explain what your piece means, then it has failed. Kung Fu contra As Bonecas has this problem to the nth power. 

Let’s start with the part that was closest to my wheelhouse. The movie is, in large part, an outright spoof of the David Carradine vehicle “Kung Fu,” the popular American TV series in which a distinctly non-Asian itinerant warrior made his way across the Old West confronting various forms of oppression and bigotry. (Depending upon who is telling the story, the real Bruce Lee either devised the premise for “Kung Fu” and had it stolen by unscrupulous producers, or was first in line for the lead role but was bypassed by studio execs who couldn’t fathom making an Asian actor the star of a prime-time TV series.)

Playing the lead role himself in a ludicrous oversized jet-black wig, Adriano Stuart deliberately mocks “Kung Fu”’s conventions, with flashbacks that directly parody the hero’s education in some dark monastery, turning the show’s innocent boy into a privileged young man in a graduation cap and gown and bearing the sobriquet “mosquito” (in place of the series’ “grasshopper”). He is instructed in the ways of Zen calm, which he consistently fails to maintain. In case that’s not obvious enough, this Chang sports a pink tank top featuring a glittery illustration of Carradine’s character hovering above the words “KUNG FU,” a garment that one suspects he picked up in a Hot Topic. It’s either unrestrained commitment to the bit or desperate flailing to make sure everyone gets the joke. 

Chang’s enemies are the cangaceiros, outlaws who brutalize the region, engaging in robbery, rape, and murder. Scenes in which the gang terrorizes innocents almost seem to be aping Sergio Leone, depicting their violence graphically and unblinkingly and setting a serious contrast to the ridiculous hero. However, the feminine habits Continue reading IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: KUNG FU CONTRA AS BONECAS [KUNG FU AGAINST THE DOLLS] (1975) →

Capsules

CAPSULE: ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL (2024)

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On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is currently available on VOD for purchase or rental.

DIRECTED BY: Rungano Nyoni

FEATURING: Susan Chardy, Elizabeth Chisela, Doris Naulapwa, Esther Singini

PLOT: A middle-class Zambian woman finds her uncle’s dead body lying in the road, and then is reluctantly tasked with hosting his funeral arrangements.

Still from On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (2024)

COMMENTS: Returning late at night from a costume party (in a bizarre rhinestone mask and trash-bag jumper that looks weird but turns out to have a perfectly logical explanation: the outfit’s from a popular Missy Elliot music video), Shula comes across her Uncle Fred’s dead body lying in the road. She immediately puts on the same grim expression she will wear throughout the rest of the film: the look of a woman who is intensely annoyed that she will now be obligated to pretend to care. After reporting the body, she has to put her career on pause for a drawn-out funeral that involves housing dozens of mourners, enduring a lot of crawling and wailing from the women of the family, cooking and serving meals to the men, observing complicated and inconvenient taboos and obligations, and trying to keep quiet about the terrible secret about Uncle Fred that everyone knows (and which will be revealed early on even if you don’t guess it).

Guinea Fowl has a few easy-to-identify dream sequences, and occasional odd touches (the partially flooded rooms of Bupe’s college dorm.) It features an indifferent, collage-like timeline: there’s little to orient you, as Shula changes location from house to hospital room without much explanation, and the nights seem to stretch on forever so you can’t tell how much time really passes. It’s the kind of “surrealism” mainstream critics eat up: mild, restrained, tasteful, and purely decorative. What’s more interesting here than either the base drama or the absurdist accoutrements, at least to outsiders, are the funeral procedures themselves, which mix Christianity with older traditions and culminate in a trial-like meeting between Fred and his wife’s families where they angrily argue over dividing up his possessions (without any visible concern for the many orphans he leaves behind).

I’m a tiny bit baffled by the universal critical acclaim Guinea Fowl has received; I’m not surprised that most critics loved it, but I am surprised that every critic on Rotten Tomatoes loved it (not a single reviewer found themselves the slightest bit bored at times?) It’s an aggressively niche movie; as a female-centered art-house drama from Africa, it couldn’t force it’s way into many stateside theaters even with A24’s marketing muscle behind it. It sports hallmarks mainstream critics love: realist drama, feminist and ethnographic themes, an uncontroversially important subject. But, while undoubtedly well-made, it strikes me as too obvious and uneventful, with the advertised surrealism and absurdity insufficiently fierce to raise it above similarly themed dramas. But I’m clearly in a minority in confessing only a distant, cool admiration for Nyoni’s sophomore film.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“There are surreal and absurdist touches throughout Nyoni’s second feature… she has a perfect sense of how to blend no-nonsense realism with its more magical counterpart.”–David Fear, Rolling Stone (contemporaneous)

Capsules

CAPSULE: BATMAN NINJA VS. YAKUZA LEAGUE (2025)

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ニンジャバットマン対ヤクザリーグ

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DIRECTED BY: , Shinji Takagi

FEATURING: Voices of , Romi Park, Yûki Kaji, Takaya Kamikawa, Rie Kugimiya,  Kazuhiro Yamaji; Joe Daniels, Molly Searcy, Bryson Baugus, Aaron Campbell, Karlii Hoch, John Swasey (English dub)

PLOT: The morning after returning to contemporary Gotham from feudal Japan, Batman finds an ominous landmass floating in the stratosphere and an entire nation wiped from the globe.

COMMENTS: It is another normal day in Gotham. Batman, Robin, Red Robin, and Red Hood are assembled in Wayne Manor. Yakuza are falling from the sky. This unlikely weather has been plaguing Gotham for the past month, claims Commissioner Gordon, who at least is spared the sight of the islands of Japan floating ominously above the city. Batman, as befits a Detective Comics hero, suspects that something isn’t quite right.

Junpei Mizusaki and Shinji Takagi pick up where Batman Ninja left off. Gorilla Grod, it appears, was not the mastermind behind the diabolical doings which grafted DC’s rogues gallery to feudal Japan. Grod’s space-time disrupter has apparently switched gears to plant the Justice League into a facsimile of contemporary Japan: one ruled over by warring yakuza clans, which are in turn lorded over by the erstwhile crime fighters. As Batman comes to terms with this development, his family team of good-doers square off in grand comics-cinematic style against the West-meets-East imaginings of impossibly powerful villains.

The filmmakers pull off this stunt with aplomb and plenty of explosions. There is never a dull moment as the plot twists along its appropriately circuitous path. Exotic delights abound, be they Green Lantern’s “death dice” tumbling their luminescent emerald destruction down upon one of the heroes, Robin being trapped inside a claw machine filled with California rolls, origami folds of space and time shifting disastrously in the arch villain’s lair, or more prosaically when evil-Aquaman tumbles to the ground after sparring with time-shifted—but thankfully, still Justice-League-y—Wonder Woman. (The subtitle options obliged me to watch the Japanese-dialogue version with “English for the Hard of Hearing”. This kept me informed of explosions and music, but regrettably did not provide the written explanation, “Massive Thud of a 20-Foot Silver Catfish Crashing to the Ground.”) Whoever may have had the power to restrain the creative team her obviously had no inclination so to do, which reminds me that never before have I seen an orbital yakuza launcher powered through a cycling gyre manifested by the world’s fastest man.

It’s all pretty nuts and a whole lot of fun. The surprises found in the interpretations of this solidly American franchise throughout the two parts (Batman Ninja / vs. the Yakuza League) are plentiful enough that I’ll go out on a limb here and suggest that both films together would fit nicely in our Apocrypha: their voracious vim, endless excesses, and infinite ingenuity make this epic adventure a mighty Boff! Bonk! and Pow! right to the brainpan in manner you don’t see over here on the boring side of the Pacific.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…equal parts exciting action and completely ludicrous comedy, making it a faithful, loving tribute to both anime and Western superheroes. It looks great, the character designs are brilliant, and it features surprisingly funny gags. Anyone looking for more will be bored or (more likely) confused.”–Sam Barsanti, IGN (contemporaneous)

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Capsules

CAPSULE: BABY INVASION (2024)

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Baby Invasion is currently available on VOD for purchase or rental.

DIRECTED BY: Harmony Korine

FEATURING: Juan Bofill, Shawn Thomas, Steven Rodriguez, Antonio Jackson, Tej Limlas Ly, Anonymous

PLOT: Six baby-faced goons massacre guests at a mansion in search of stacks of cash and Internet notoriety.

COMMENTS: My only real quibble with Mr. Korine’s latest romp is that it could have been far, far more disturbing. Of course, a “romp” can really only be so disturbing before it leaves romp territory, so perhaps the director did things correctly. Regardless, Baby Invasion is, without a doubt, exactly what Harmony Korine wanted it to be, for better in a number ways—and for worse, according to the general impressions that have caught my ear.

This brings me to the primary characteristic I admire in Harmony Korine: I believe he does not care what I think, what you think, what the Academy thinks, what the French think, what anyone thinks. Like Frank Sinatra, albeit filtered through Syd Vicious, Korine can stand proudly and shout: I Did It My Way. In this case, “his way” went as follows: 1) Invasion. A home invasion, the home being an expansive and expensive mansion, with several pools both indoor and out, countless objets kind of just taking up space (whoever owns this place can afford a decorator, and should seriously consider hiring one). This home is invaded by a squad of alarmingly well-armed guys who show up in a van, eat some of the inhabitants’ fruit, take some of their drugs, and otherwise lark about as they search for the mansion’s safe.

2) Baby. Now, this “found footage” is flanked by a documentary-style (à la late ’90s camcorder, judging from the film quality) conversation with a programmer who explains how her game was hijacked halfway to completion and converted into a quasi-avatar/quasi-livestream showcase for real home invasions. The gaggle of goons have their faces obscured by baby-faces; there is a constant side-scroll of remarks and emojis from real-time ‘Net observers; pixel-splosion boosts and power-ups sparkle on the screen as our pseudonymous protagonist goes through the motions.

Baby Invasion is a novelty, and for its eighty-minute runtime is entertaining enough. Whatever commentary one gleans will not take a lot of effort. I can only recommend this—somewhat—because of my degree of disorientation by the end, as game, meta-game, meta-life, and life became increasingly difficult to differentiate. The occasional shots of the “gamers” suggest none of this is real. The security cameras suggests it is. This muddling, I suspect, is Korine’s overarching goal, and he achieves it nicely. However, I would have preferred to be either slightly more amused, or considerably more dismayed, by the goings-on.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Korine, who started the company Edglrd in recent years to package his bizarre and off-putting projects while shepherding those similar from others, seems to believe that whatever ‘Baby Invasion’ is housing is the key to the evolution of cinema. That’s upsetting if true, but in a crippled moment for the creativity of the art form from the multiplexes to the arthouse, we might as well listen in… The wall-to-wall trippy rabbit hole of a world Korine has constructed is an immersive environment that shapeshifts… I sort of prayed for oblivion while in my own seat, but I was strangely hypnotized throughout.”–Ryan Lattanzio, Indiewire (festival screening)